Syria --Is it heading towards civil war ?

Syrian government on Friday said their investigation has shown that 800 rebel fighters were to blame for the massacre of more than 100 people in the tow
nship of Houla. This contradicted witnesses who blamed that the killings were probably the work of forces sympathetic to Syrian President Bashar Assad.

 More than 100 people, nearly half of them children were killed in the massacre in central Syria last week.The narrative starkly contradicted accounts of witnesses who blamed "shabiha"  gunmen who operate on behalf of President Bashar Assad's regime.

The UN pointed that  pro-regime gunmen were responsible for much of the carnage on Friday in a cluster of villages known as Houla.

On the other hand ,a  Houla-based opposition activist made it clear that there had been no government investigation.
   

"The regime is looking for ways to justify the massacre to the world," said Saria al-Houlany. "It's clear that there wasn't any professional probe. ... If we had 800 fighters in Houla, this massacre would not have happened," he said.

At a news conference today, Qassem Jamal Suleiman, who headed the government's investigation into the  massacre,categorically denied any regime role. He said hundreds of rebel gunmen carried out the slaughter after launching a
coordinated attack on five security checkpoints.

 The aim, he said, was to frame the government and to ignite sectarian strife in Syria. "Government forces did not enter the area where the massacre occurred, not before the massacre and not after it,"he said, adding that the victims were families who refused to oppose the government or carry arms.

Facing international outrage over the killings, Damascus announced that special prayers for the victims would be held at mosques across the country on Friday .

The situation is alarming in Syria --Is it heading towards civil war 

The UN chief Ban Ki-moon warned of civil war and pleaded with the regime to stop its attacks.Syria said  that it regretted Ban Ki-moon's warning of a "catastrophic civil war", saying the UN chief had become a "herald" of such a conflict.
  

 

"It is regrettable that the secretary general of the United Nations has departed from his mission of maintaining peace and security in the world to become a herald of civil war," foreign ministry spokesman Jihad Makdisi told a Damascus news conference.
  

Meanwhile,the White House disagrees strongly that it should be arming Assad opponents, saying that could lead to further chaos and carnage.

Obama  will also be thinking of building pressure on Syria diplomatically by  applying through Russia to use its influence with its ally in Damascus,also  backing a United Nations peacemaking effort.

US envoy Susan Rice  stepped up US calls for increased international pressure on President Bashar al-Assad.The US ambassador to the United Nations also condemned "reprehensible" Russian arms deliveries to Syria.
   
A Russian ship carrying arms arrived in the Syrian portof Tartus last weekend.Russia is Syria's staunch ally and has defended Assad in UN Security Council debates on the uprising against him.

Rice argued "It is not technically, obviously, a violation of international law since there is not an arms embargo, but it is reprehensible that arms would continue to flow to a regime that is using such horrific and disproportionate force against its own people."

More than 13,000 people have been killed, mostly civilians, since an uprising erupted in March 2011 against the Assad family's 40-year rule, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.